Stratford Schools Collaborate to Produce Hour of Code Project

Stratford School, a group of private schools based in California, is participating for the fifth year in a row in Code.org’s global Hour of Code, which takes place Dec. 5 through 11.

Stratford’s preschool students on its Melrose campus in Los Angeles will collaborate Dec. 9 with Stratford’s eighth graders on its San Jose Middle School campus. The two classes will come together in a virtual classroom project, writing and animating a story for iPads using the computer coding skills they’re learning as part of Stratford’s STEAM curriculum.

The eighth graders will mentor the preschoolers during the project — one of many activities across Stratford’s 22 campuses where nearly 6,000 students are participating in a variety of learning activities designed to build student confidence, persistence, collaboration and creative problem solving skills. Stratford School was among the first private schools to champion Code.org’s Hour of Code initiative launched four years ago, according to a news release.

“At Stratford, we believe it’s important that our students go beyond just being consumers of technology to becoming creators of the technology tools they use every day,” said Monisha Gupta, senior director of curriculum and instruction at Stratford School, in a statement. “As part of our balanced curriculum infused wit fine arts and foreign language, we’re teaching our students programming skills starting at age 3 with tools like Bee-Bots and Dash and Dot robots, and eventually moving them to advanced coding languages. Early on, they’re actually learning how computer code is created. Whether or not they pursue careers in technology, engineering or coding, they learn to logically organize and analyze real life problems to create better solutions.”

Carrie Lynne Draper, executive director and STEM expert at Readiness Learning Associates, said in a statement: “Stratford teaches their youngest students how to use technology, so they can begin to understand the possibilities of computers and tablets, going beyond drag-and-drop and swipe-and-scroll.”

Stratford offers an accelerated curriculum from preschool through eighth grade with an emphasis in the areas of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), according to a news release. For more information about the schools, visit stratfordschool.com.

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